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ver, the temperature of which, in the season of 

 the floods, descends as low as twenty-two de- 

 grees, when the air is at thirty and thirty-three 

 degrees, is an inestimable benefit, in a country 

 where the heats are excessive during the whole 

 year, and where it is so agreeable to bathe several 

 times in the day. The children pass, as it were, 

 a part of their lives in the water : the whole of 

 the inhabitants, even the women of the most 

 opulent families, know how to swim ; and in a 

 country where man is so near the state of nature, 

 one of the first questions asked at first meeting 

 in the morning is, whether the water is cooler 

 than the preceding evening. The mode of bath- 

 ing is various enough. We every evening vi- 

 sited a very respectable society, in the suburb of 

 the Guayquerias. In a fine moonlight night, 

 chairs were placed in the water : the men and 

 women were lightly clothed, as in some baths of 

 the north of Europe ; and the family and stran- 

 gers, assembled in the river, passed some hours 

 in smoking segars, and in talking, according to 

 the custom of the country, of the extreme dry- 

 ness of the season, of the abundant rains in the 

 neighbouring districts, and particularly of the 

 luxuries, of which the ladies of Cumana accuse 

 those of the Caraccas and the Havannah. The 

 company were under no apprehensions from the 

 bavas, or small crocodiles, which are now ex- 

 tremely scarce, and which approach men with- 



2 K 



